Documentary About Bullying & Homophobia in Venango County Opens Inaugural Human Rights Watch Film Festival in Washington, DC

(Washington, DC, January 19, 2011) – The first DC Human Rights Watch Film Festival will screen five works with distinctive human rights themes each Wednesday from February 2 to March 2, 2011, Human Rights Watch announced today.


The festival, a co-presentation of Human Rights Watch and The West End Cinema, is designed as a forum for courageous individuals on both sides of the lens to empower audiences with the knowledge that personal commitment can make a difference.

“The DC Festival brings a reflection of the condition of the world in which we live to one of the world's most important human rights stages: the capital of the nation that has long sought to promote human rights around the globe,” said John Biaggi, director of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival.

The opening night feature on February 2, is “Out in the Silence,” a documentary by Washington, DC-based filmmakers Joe Wilson and Dean Hamer that looks at an issue of urgent human rights concern: the need for full inclusion, justice and equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in the United States.

The documentary follows the story of a small American town (in Venango County) confronting a firestorm of controversy ignited by a same-sex wedding announcement in the local paper, and the subsequent brutal bullying of a gay teen. It challenges audiences to rethink their values and consider how they can help close the gaps that have divided families, friends, and communities on these issues.

“In light of the public debates over issues such as military service and marriage equality, not-to-mention anti-gay bullying, teen suicides, and safe schools, the screening of this film in Washington, DC could not be more timely,” said Boris Dittrich, acting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender program director at Human Rights Watch.

Produced in association with the Sundance Institute and Penn State Public Broadcasting, “Out in the Silence” premiered at the 2010 Human Rights Watch International Film Festival in New York. It won an Emmy Award for Achievement in Documentary from the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, and has received praise from critics and festivals worldwide.

The film's directors say they are most interested in using it as a vehicle for grass-roots outreach, education, and civic engagement, particularly in small towns and rural communities where there often isn't any visible or organized LGBT presence at all. Wilson and Hamer have conducted more than 300 town-hall-style screening events in libraries and other public venues across the country, reaching nearly every county in Pennsylvania, and doing rural tours of Oregon, South Carolina, and South Dakota.

“The characters in the film are just ordinary people – a kid and his mom, an Evangelical preacher and his wife, a lesbian couple who start a business – but their stories get at the heart of how anti-LGBT stigma and repression play out and continue to harm individuals in such communities,” Hamer said.

“We're hoping that this Human Rights Watch screening here in DC, from which so much of the harmful anti-LGBT rhetoric and activities emanate, will shine new light on these issues and help people, particularly our elected officials and other high-profile leaders, begin to find common ground to end the madness once and for all,” Wilson said

Wilson, Hamer, and Dittrich, will be at The West End Cinema, 2301 M Street NW, for a post-screening dialogue with the audience.

Visit www.westendcinema.com for more information.

For a press kit and to see a film trailer: http://OutintheSilence.com

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Quotes About OUT IN THE SILENCE

“A stunning documentary” -Philadelphia Inquirer

“Film Critic's Pick-of-the-Week” -New York times

“Tough. Wrenching. Inspiring.” - OUT Magazine

“Most moving are the stories of heterosexuals who transform because of their relationships with GLBT people.” -American Library Association

“Though the film is made by two gay men, it doesn't seek to promote a “gay agenda” or to stereotype the “religious right.” It's simply a matter of trying to understand attitudes in small-town America.”
-Christianity Today

Daring to Be Gay in Small Town USA

Film Review of OUT IN THE SILENCE by Amanda Bransford for the IPS News Agency:

NEW YORK, Jun 21, 2010 (IPS) - Washington, D.C. residents Joe Wilson and Dean Hamer weren't expecting to become filmmakers when they placed an announcement of their wedding in Wilson's hometown newspaper.

A similar announcement they had placed in the New York Times garnered only congratulations, but in Oil City, Pennsylvania, the reception to a same-sex wedding was not so warm.


"It was a fascinating contrast," said Wilson, when the Oil City paper received angry letters instead of good wishes.

Wilson went through high school closeted and had long felt unwelcome in his hometown, so the chilly reception to his happy news was no great surprise.

Then Wilson received something that did surprise him: a letter from Kathy Springer, the mother of CJ, a gay Oil City teenager who had been harassed so badly in his public school that he had quit in favour of home schooling and barely left the house.

The school board refused to help CJ, and his mother didn't know where to turn. "I was the only openly gay person she knew of," said Wilson.

The movement for gay rights has tended to focus on urban areas, said Wilson, and, though Wilson and Hamer had not made a film before, they wanted CJ's story to be told.

"We realised that if we wanted this documented, we should start filming," said Hamer.

Over the course of three years, the two men traveled frequently to Pennsylvania to shoot, eventually receiving a grant from the Sundance Institute.

In the process, Wilson and Hamer were struck by the silence in which GLBT people in small town U.S.A. are forced to live. CJ had become a target by daring to break that silence and come out in high school – something no one did when Wilson was growing up in Oil City.

The increasing visibility of GLBT people has had mixed results for teenagers like CJ, said Hamer.

"The good side is that kids like CJ know that they're not the only gay person in the world, but the bad side is that there's been a backlash as a result," he said. "It's made bullying even worse as a way to tag kids that are gay."

Oil City's vocal conservative Christian community was making life especially difficult for GLBT residents.

Hamer says while that the anti-gay activists in Oil City may have seemed like an extreme fringe group, "They have power because no one wants to make them upset."

Despite the efforts of these activists, Wilson and Hamer were surprised to find an accepting community in Oil City that Wilson, growing up in silence himself, had overlooked.

"I was terrified of beginning to understand who I was," said Wilson of his adolescence. "The general dominant culture said that this was not good, and I was not seeking a community out."

Returning to document CJ's story, though, Wilson, along with his husband, forges relationships with lesbian neighbours he never knew he had who are facing their own struggles. He is even able to find common ground with some of those who had complained about the wedding announcement.

"It changed my perception of my home town," Wilson said.

Wilson and Hamer have now become unlikely ambassadors of a sort for struggling Oil City.

They took their finished film to the city council, said Wilson, and told them, "Either you can deny this all happened, or look at it as a tool to show what a great place Oil City is becoming. They did the latter."

A subsequent screening at the local community college sold out, and the filmmakers have brought "Out in the Silence" to other towns in hope that Oil City's progress can serve as a model.

"This is not just film for film's sake," said Hamer. "It's a powerful tool for community activism."

Human Rights Watch expressed interest while Wilson and Hamer were working on the project, and the film will screen Jun. 21-23 at the Film Society of Lincoln Centre as part of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival.

"Human Rights Watch saw that this isn't just a domestic political issue as people sometimes see gay rights. It's tied into the global struggle for equality," said Wilson.

OUT IN THE SILENCE also screens in the Tribeca Cinemas: Doc Series on June 28.

OUT IN THE SILENCE To Screen In The 2010 Human Rights Watch International Film Festival In New York - June 21, 22 & 23

NEW YORK – Now in its 21st year, the 2010 Human Rights Watch Film Festival — the world’s foremost showcase for films with a distinctive human rights theme — creates a forum for courageous individuals on both sides of the lens to empower audiences with the knowledge that personal commitment can make a difference. A co-presentation of Human Rights Watch and The Film Society of Lincoln Center, the festival will run from June 10 to 24 at the Film Society’s Walter Reade Theater.

Thirty extraordinary works from 25 countries will be screened, 28 of which are New York premieres. A majority of the filmmakers will be on hand after the screenings to discuss their films with the audience.

“The Human Rights Watch Film Festival reflects the condition of the world we live in, including the top news events around the world,” said John Biaggi, the festival director. “No one is immune to the rippling effects when human rights are violated, whether here in our country or far away. It affects us all.”

This year’s festival is organized around three themes, beginning with Accountability and Justice. OUT IN THE SILENCE, screening on June 21, 22 & 23, delves into aspects of this theme by following three Americans caught up in a same-sex marriage controversy as they confront three of society’s most formidable forces—the church, the school system, and prevailing social norms.

The film captures the controversy that ensues when filmmaker Joe Wilson's same-sex wedding announcement is published in the newspaper of Oil City, the small Pennsylvania hometown he left long ago. Drawn back by a plea for help from the mother of a gay teen being tormented at school, Wilson's journey dramatically illustrates the challenges of negotiating the morally charged issue of sexual orientation and the potential for building bridges when people with differing opinions approach each other with openness and respect.

A Human Rights Watch Podcast of an interview with filmmakers Joe Wilson and Dean Hamer, along with HRW's Boris Dittrich, can be heard HERE.

More information about the film festival screenings can be found HERE.